10/20/2011 1 Comment A Write and Polish ValentineThe kinds of things that make Writers and Polishers smile (and go just a little bit weak in the knees)!
Enjoy!!
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10/19/2011 0 Comments Recognition of Fun Words and PhrasesWrite and Polish offers you the nifty phrase of the day, found in this movie review at io9.com: "wonderful steampunkery and ... supernatural brouhaha!"
That's some mighty fine use of words. (Hey, it doesn't all have to be highfalutin and fancy!) 10/11/2011 0 Comments Why Language Has RulesFor a lot of people, it can be very easy to feel that the "rules" of grammar and punctuation are arbitrary and mostly there to confuse. This is an example of the fact that they perform actual jobs meant to clarify meaning.
Like any tools, however, it helps to know how and when and where to properly use them. 10/10/2011 0 Comments From the Peanut Gallery --Writing/language humor for a Monday:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right." 9/7/2011 0 Comments Language or Leprosy?Yes, it's the game sensation that's sweeping the nation! We ran a wonderfully successful new game this morning at our weekly Business Network International (BNI) meeting -- we call it 'Language or Leprosy!' It struck us some time ago that there are grammatical and linguistic terms that, if one did not know otherwise, one might just think were some dread disease or anatomical feature! And, vice-versa. So, presented with such a word, contestants had the opportunity to guess (for a prize of chocolate or caramels!) whether or not the word, say, "axilla" or "metonymy" or "anapest" is LANGUAGE or LEPROSY! Answers: Anapest = Language. It is the poetic meter that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. Example:" 'Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas and ALL through the HOUSE..." Axilla = Leprosy (for the purposes of the game). It is the anatomical term for armpit! Use it when you wish to be both tactful and insulting at the same time! Meonymy = Language. It is a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of 'Washington' for the United States government or burger-no-onions for a restaurant customer. This site was shared with us by alert Facebook-er, faithful Write and Polish friend and fellow grammarista, Anne Gibson from The Sign Shop of Racine. If apostrophes give you palpitations, bookmark this page! This post is dated as old as the system will go -- we had intended to back-date it all the way to the debut of the grammar series of Schoolhouse Rock!, back in 1973. Alas, the blog app does not recognize the legitimacy of this idea. Too bad! Nonetheless, travel back with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when we lounged around the living room of a Saturday morning, consuming cartoons and ads for impossibly sugar-laden cereals -- and sang along to Schoolhouse Rock! Through the magic of YouTube, you can sing along again, all about our friends, the Noun, Verb, Adjective and (sing it with us, "lolly, lolly, lolly, get your Adverbs here!") |
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